


Gather Ye Rosebuds

by MilesHibernus



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: HYDRA Trash Party, M/M, Rape, Torture, gratuitous literary references
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-11
Updated: 2016-02-11
Packaged: 2018-05-18 03:37:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,477
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5896615
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MilesHibernus/pseuds/MilesHibernus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Bucky woke up he didn't know where he was or why his arm was covered in metal.  Rumlow didn't really bother to explain.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gather Ye Rosebuds

When Bucky woke up he didn’t know where he was.  
  
He noticed first that it was _quiet_ , in a way the Montague Street apartment never was; even in the small hours you could always hear something, but all he could hear was the sound of his own heartbeat. Then he opened his eyes, and instead of age-gray wood and the iron bedstead he’d had to enlist three of the guys from the warehouse to help him haul home he saw a white ceiling with lights sunk into it somehow.  
  
“What the fuck?” he muttered, and sat up. His left arm felt weird, like it was wrapped in cotton wool. And when he looked at it—his arm was, was covered in metal? Even the fingers had metal over them like a rigid glove. “What the _fuck_?” Bucky said, louder. He raised his hand before his face and wiggled the fingers. They did as they were told but they still didn’t feel right.  
  
Movement caught the corner of his eye and he turned his head to discover that one of the walls of this strange white room was mirrored from waist-height to ceiling. He was sitting on a cot in the center of the floor, wearing plain white clothes that fit like pajamas. His hair was too long and wanted to fall in his face.  
  
And that was as far as he got before a door opened in the wall opposite the mirror. Bucky scrambled off the cot as a man came in. He was about Bucky’s height and had short black hair, and he looked like a tough guy. Bucky crouched a little, not that he was feeling good about his chances when this guy had a nightstick on his belt and Bucky didn’t even have shoes. For some reason that made the guy grin. “You Barnes?” he asked.  
  
“Who wants to know?” Bucky asked.  
  
The guy’s grin widened and he held his hands up as if to say he was harmless. “Relax, kid, it’s just a question.”  
  
Bucky said, “Tell me where the hell I am and I’ll answer it.” Not that he liked being called ‘kid’ but the guy had at least ten years on him, he’d handle it.  
  
“You’re in a recovery room in New York City,” the guy said easily, though he seemed to find the answer funny for some reason.  
  
“I should damn well hope I’m in New York,” Bucky said. “What the hell—”  
  
“Hey, you said you’d answer mine,” the guy said over him.  
  
Bucky pressed his lips together for a second. “James Buchanan Barnes,” he said.  
  
“Great,” the guy said. “And what year is it?”  
  
“If you don’t know you’re in worse shape than I am,” Bucky snapped.  
  
The guy laughed. “I know, I just want to see if you do.”  
  
“No really, what the hell happened?” Bucky asked, and he wasn’t exactly beginning to be scared; he’d _been_ scared. But he didn’t like the sound of the phrase ‘recovery room’, and now the guy was checking his memory?  
  
The guy’s brown eyes narrowed and there was some bite in his tone when he said, “Answer the question.”  
  
“1941,” Bucky said.  
  
He wasn’t sure what response he expected, but it wasn’t for the guy to burst into laughter. “Oh, man, this is great. You aren’t even in the Army yet, are you?”  
  
“Why the hell would I do that?” It’d be good pay but if he went into the Army who’d keep Steve out of trouble? Or _get_ him out of trouble, it wasn’t like God Himself could stop Steve Rogers from going out looking to get punched.  Plus anyone with a brain knew they were going to get into the War sooner or later, and Bucky had no great desire to get shot by a German.  
  
The dark-haired man smirked at him. “This is the best I’ve ever seen.” He looked Bucky up and down, a slow creeping survey that made him want to squirm, and said, “We have three days, kid, so I’m going to leave you with some nice hold music while you wait a few hours.”  
  
The door slid open sideways, which Bucky hadn’t really noticed before, and the guy stepped backwards out of it as Bucky said, “Hey, wait, hold on a goddamned second!” He got to the door just as it closed with a click and raised his fist to beat on it, but then he heard a sound, like a radio not tuned to any station, and then…  
  
It was Steve’s voice, Bucky would have sworn on a Bible, but what it said was, “Come in, this is Captain Rogers, do you read me?”  
  
“Captain Rogers, what is your loc—” said another man, only to be overridden by a woman’s voice, an English accent, demanding, “Steve, is that you, are you all right?”  
  
“Peggy! Schmidt’s dead,” Steve said, and who the hell was Schmidt? Why was Steve talking about dead people?  
  
“What about the plane?” asked the woman, Peggy.  
  
There was a brief pause and then, “That’s a little bit tougher to explain,” and Bucky could just picture the way Steve shrugged when he said it.  
  
“Give me your coordinates, I’ll find you a safe landing site,” Peggy said, which meant that Steve was _flying_ an airplane? By himself?  
  
“What the fuck, Rogers?” Bucky whispered, leaning against the door, fascinated.  
  
“There’s not gonna be a safe landing,” Steve said, “but I can try and force it down.”  
  
Bucky really didn't like the sound of that and neither did Peggy. She replied, “I, I’ll get Howard on the line, he’ll know what to do.”  
  
“There’s not enough time. This thing’s moving too fast and it’s heading for New York.” He was quiet for a second. “I gotta put her in the water.”  The implications sank in.  
  
“Please, don’t do this.  We have time," Peggy said, sounding like she was trying to convince herself as much as Steve. "We can work it out.”  
  
“Right now I’m in the middle of nowhere. If I wait any longer a lot of people are gonna die.” There was an awful pause that couldn’t have been as long as it felt before Steve went on, “Peggy...this is my choice.”  
  
That must have meant something to Peggy, because she didn’t say anything. Bucky felt his knees wobbling under him and turned to brace his back against the door. He wanted to put his hands over his ears and couldn’t, and finally Steve said, “Peggy.”  
  
“I’m here,” she replied.  
  
“I’m gonna need a raincheck on that dance,” Steve said.  
  
“Oh no,” Bucky said. No. Steve couldn’t be...doing something stupid when he’d finally found a dame who appreciated him the way he deserved.  
  
“All right,” she said. Her voice was filled with tears, but Bucky could tell they weren’t falling quite yet. “A week next Saturday, at the Stork Club.”  
  
“You got it,” said Steve.  
  
“Eight o’clock on the dot, don’t you dare be late. Understood?”  
  
“You know I still don’t know how to dance.”  
  
Peggy laughed, just a breath, but the tears were coming now, Bucky could hear them. “I’ll show you how, just be there,” she said.  
  
“We’ll have the band play something slow,” Steve said. “I’d hate to step on your—”  
  
The transmission cut off into static.  
  
“Steve?” Peggy said. “Steve? _Steve?_ ”  
  
There was no reply. “No,” Bucky moaned. His knees gave up the ghost and he slid down the door, hardly noticing. It had to be a trick, it _had to be_ , it didn’t make any _sense_ , but it was Steve’s voice, the way he paused, the rise and fall of it, and who could fake a voice that well?  
  
The sound again, of a radio tuned to no station, and then Steve said, “Come in, this is Captain Rogers, do you read me?”

* * *

By the fourth repetition he was shouting.  
  
By the tenth, he was crying.  
  
After that he lost count.  
  
It went on for long enough that he had it memorized, every word and pause, the hitch in Peggy’s breath as she called hopelessly for Steve, the moment Steve’s despair broke through. Bucky spent two or three repetitions at a time convinced it was a fake, but it was always the same sentence that changed his mind, “That’s a little bit tougher to explain,” like Steve was trying to tell his ma how he’d gotten into a fight this time.  
  
He couldn’t find the goddamned loudspeaker. The voices came from everywhere, and when he covered his ears the volume went up.  
  
He was sitting on the cot with his head in his hands when Peggy said _Steve_ for the third time and the sound of the carrier cut out. Bucky had just enough time to think _Thank fucking God_ before the door slid open. He looked up as men started to file into the room—the cell, by now it was clear that it was a cell, never mind that there weren’t any bars. The one in front was the asshole who’d been in before the recording started, but there were six others with him and they _all_ looked like tough guys. And they were carrying...things. One held a cluster of heavy handcuffs, at least four sets, and a metal contraption that resembled two Chinese finger traps sized for King Kong. Another carried some lengths of chain coiled over his shoulder like a dockworker with a bundle of rope. A third just had a sleek black case that was somehow the scariest thing in the bunch.  
  
The first asshole stopped, too close, so that if Bucky stood up they’d be in kissing distance, and said, “So tell me, kid, were you and Rogers butt buddies?”  
  
That took a second to work out but then, “What the fuck kind of question is that?” Bucky demanded. “Steve’s _not_ a fairy.” No matter what people liked to assume just because he was short, and if Bucky sometimes caught himself looking when Steve got out of the bath, that was his own problem. Except if the recording was real, Steve was dead, and _what year was it_?  
  
Asshole #1 smirked. “He wasn’t, huh? How about you?”  
  
Bucky felt himself flushing red, and anger was better than fear or grief. It wasn’t that he was ashamed of himself; he figured he was how God made him. But it wasn’t safe and yeah, there were places but he couldn’t afford to risk getting the shit beaten out of him—or arrested—when he had Steve to keep an eye on. Besides, it wasn’t like he was hard up, he liked dames perfectly well. “You should know better than to ask questions like that,” he spat. “People might get the wrong idea about you.” Bucky started thinking about standing up anyway. Make the guy back the hell off.  
  
“You know, you talk too much,” Asshole #1 said in a conversational way, like they were pals smoking out behind the warehouse, and grabbed Bucky by the chin. “Let’s find something else to do with your mouth.”  
  
_Shit_ , Bucky thought, and bounced to his feet, trying to punch the guy in the nuts. Asshole #1 swayed out of the way and took the shot on his hip instead, and Bucky was winding up for another try when another of the tough guys grabbed his left wrist. Bucky yanked and the guy stumbled towards him—must not’ve been braced—and he thought, _This is going better’n I thought it would_. They were going to get him down, he knew it, there were seven of them, but he was gonna by God make ‘em work for it.  
  
He twisted against the hands, punching where he could, and barely noticed that there were _two_ guys hanging from his left arm until he actually looked at them. And Bucky was no slouch; he’d learned to fight because he’d had to, because Steve couldn’t keep his smart mouth shut, but he felt different somehow, like his muscles knew more than he did. He started to realize that if he just didn’t think about it his body would move _for_ him.  
  
But he realized it just a hair too late.  
  
Three of the guys (including Asshole #1, to his satisfaction) had incipient shiners and one was nursing a wrist Bucky thought was cracked if not quite broken when they wrestled him to his knees. His hands rested at the small of his back, encased in the finger-trap thing. They put a similar gadget on his ankles and then the wiseass who’d brought the handcuffs in had the bright idea to use a pair to fasten wrists and ankles together so he was bent uncomfortably back. Handcuffs was a tall guy, sandy blond, with features like a bad picture of Steve.  
  
Asshole #1 bent and cupped Bucky’s chin again. “You gonna behave, kid?”  
  
“Anything you put in my mouth, you’re gonna lose,” Bucky said, trying to ignore the sinking feeling in his stomach. It never seemed to hit bottom. He was going to fall forever.  
  
“I gotta admit, I was hoping you’d say that,” Asshole #1 said jovially.  
  
The guy with the case picked it up from where he’d dropped it and set it on the cot, snapping it open. He pulled something out; it had leather straps and a metal circle in the middle and Bucky had no fucking clue what it could possibly be for until Asshole #1 held it in front of his face and said, “Open your mouth.”  
  
“Like hell,” Bucky snarled, and gritted his teeth.  
  
It took three of them to pry his mouth open, but they managed it. The circle of metal was a cylinder with a flared-out lip that caught on his front teeth; they snugged the straps around his head so tight he could feel the buckles digging into his scalp.  
  
Asshole #1 smirked at him, holding his eyes as he unfastened his pants. His cock, when he pulled it free, was half-hard and smaller than Bucky’s, which wasn’t a lot of satisfaction but Bucky figured he’d better take what he could get. Asshole #1 stepped closer and put one hand on the back of Bucky’s head, stroking himself with the other.  
  
The great thing about the phrase “Fuck you” was that it didn’t have a lot of sounds that you used your lips for, so Bucky managed a pretty understandable version.  
  
“Fucking’s later, kid,” Asshole #1 said, and then his cock was sliding in. Bucky shut his eyes against it since he couldn't shut anything else and gagged when it hit the back of his throat. "That's nice. Keep doing that," Asshole #1 said. Bucky couldn't get a handle on the reflex; his throat kept spasming around the intrusion. Asshole #1 pulled out and slammed back in. Bucky couldn't breathe, not even through his nose, the man's cock blocking all the air as he ground his hips into Bucky's face. He smelled stale, like he hadn't bothered with a bath in a few days, and furious tears forced their way from the corners of Bucky's eyes. "Aw, don't cry," Asshole #1 said, sounding a little breathless. He wiped a tear away with his thumb tenderly. "This is just warm-up. We'll give you something to cry about later."  
  
Bucky tried to go limp but his back was up against the edge of the cot and it didn't do him much good; Asshole #1 wound his fingers in the too-long hair and held him upright by it. Bucky concentrated on not moving, not choking; he couldn't stop this, but he wasn't going to help make it good.  
  
Finally Asshole #1 lost his rhythm and fucked hard into Bucky's mouth, his cock twitching as he came. It was far enough back that Bucky couldn't taste it much, at least. He made himself open his eyes and glare as Asshole #1 stepped back. "Rollins, you're up," said Asshole #1. Rollins was the guy with the case and he was already hard, revved up by watching.  
  
"I dunno, I think he's pissed," he said with a twisty little smile that Bucky hated on sight.  
  
"Nah, you know the asset's always happy to help," Asshole #1 replied, and they all laughed, and then Rollins stepped up.

* * *

When they left, they didn't take the finger-traps off. "You won't have time to get lonely," Asshole #1 told him on his way out, and Bucky croaked _Fuck you_ again around the perverted gag.  
  
He waited until the door closed, and then he screamed.

* * *

Bucky couldn’t feel his feet or hands, and his right shoulder ached; his left seemed better, but he wasn’t sure how much that had to do with the whole arm feeling dull. His jaw hurt miserably, forced too wide around the metal ring, and his lips were painfully dry. He was hungry.

He had always been good at estimating the time. In the silent white room, however, he lost track entirely, with nothing to count by but the flashes of memory. He’d blink, and one of them would be there, pushing into his mouth, the taste of sweat sour on his tongue. Choking, gagging. Their voices when they laughed.

They’d kept calling him ‘the asset’, like he was a piece of property, an object.

He was tired, like he’d been awake for days, and he wished passionately that he could just lie down straight. A little experimentation proved that he couldn’t get up onto the cot; in fact he almost fell over trying, and finally he just leaned back as best he could and closed his eyes.

He didn’t think about Steve. Steve had no place here.

* * *

When the door slid open Bucky snapped out of his fragile doze with a start, his heart instantly pounding. He had no idea how long it had been, but Asshole #1, in the lead as always, looked like a guy who’d been relaxing, and Bucky hated him just a tiny bit more.

“Hey, kid,” Asshole #1 said, and he still talked like they were pals. Bucky wanted to punch him so bad he could taste it. “Having fun yet?” Bucky glared and Asshole #1 smirked at him. “Get him up.”

Two guys grabbed his arms and a third unchained his wrists from his ankles, and Bucky couldn’t disguise the breath of relief that was almost a sob as they hauled him to his feet. He couldn’t balance, his legs numb from the hips down and the metal on his arm pulling him lopsided, but he made himself hold his head straight even as he had to rely on his supporters to stay upright.

“If you play nice, this’ll be a little easier,” Asshole #1 said. Bucky rolled his eyes and Asshole #1 backhanded him hard, snapping his head to the side. He grunted, but he could take a hit.

Asshole #1 looked him over for a few seconds and nodded. “Think you can use a little more rope to hang yourself with,” he said. “Take it off.” Fingers moved over the buckles holding the gag and the straps loosened. When the horrible thing peeled away it almost hurt more to close his mouth and he knew he wouldn’t be able to talk right until he could work up some spit.

He focused on that because his legs were starting to wake up, and Bucky knew it wasn’t going to be any fun.

“You gonna try’n be smart with me?” Asshole #1 asked.

“Someone in here should be,” Bucky croaked. His voice sounded terrible. Sure enough, that got him hit again.

“You need to learn how to behave.”

Bucky licked at his bleeding lip and made big innocent eyes at him. “I’m behavin’.”

Asshole #1 sneered and said, “Let’s do it.”

At first, Bucky went along with it because Rollins knelt to take the finger-trap off his ankles. But then they walked him over to the narrow end of the cot and Asshole #1 shoved him in the back, trying to make him bend over forward and—he knew it was stupid. His hands were still fastened behind him and there were still seven of them to one of him and he’d still bet a month’s rent that the damn door didn’t even unlock from the inside. But that position just wasn’t going to go anywhere he wanted to think about.

He spun in place, breaking the hold they had on his upper arms, and kicked out with his left foot, catching Handcuffs at the ankles. The guy went down with a startled yelp. Bucky ducked through the opening, trying to get his back to a wall. He caught a glimpse of Asshole #1 scraping the nightstick off his belt but ignored it; he was on Bucky’s left side and the metal on the arm had to be good for something.

Except the nightstick lit up with sparks, like the Jacob’s ladder he and Steve had seen at the museum and stood for almost an hour wondering at, and when it hit the arm the shock burst through him like a bolt from the blue. The world went fuzzy and far-away, not for very long but long enough for them to bend him over the cot with his knees in shackles that were welded to the legs, and he was just starting to get it together again as they let his wrists loose. His right got one of the pairs of handcuffs; his left stayed in the finger-trap and they did something fancy with the length of chain. By the time they were done he was face down in the thin mattress, his hands in a vee above his head, cursing them all steadily because if he stopped being angry he was going to fucking cry.

But hey, at least he was still dressed.

It was like the thought had jinxed it: “Get his shirt,” said Asshole #1. One of the guys stepped up and Bucky tensed at the touch of cool metal at the small of his back, the blade of a pair of scissors; the guy cut his shirt off. Not that it had been a whole lot of protection, but Bucky shivered anyway, a whole-body shudder that blindsided him.

“Now you’re starting to get it,” Asshole #1 said. “We’re going to teach you some respect.”

“Fuck you right up one side and down the other, you son of a pox-ridden whore,” Bucky snarled.

“Enjoy your smart mouth while you can, kid. Order only comes through pain.”

There were some soft noises, behind his back where he couldn’t get a good look; he was sure they were doing it that way on purpose and didn’t want to give them the satisfaction of trying to crane his neck, so he just lay there, muttering every curse he could think of, his eyes closed. He had no warning, not that warning would have helped.

There was a faint sound, no more than a rush of air, and then a line of fire snapped down across his back. Bucky’s eyes flew open and he choked on his own breath trying to scream. Before he could get it worked out, the whip came down again.

It wasn’t like Bucky was any stranger to getting hurt. He’d had a couple broken fingers in his day, and a broken nose (Mrs. Rogers set that perfectly, you couldn’t even tell) and once he’d gotten a bad slice on the arm when one of Steve’s back-alley fights turned out to be a little more serious than either of them had expected.  
  
But he’d never felt anything like this, fire that marched down his back in perfect lines, and he didn’t want to give them the satisfaction but he couldn’t help it—he might’ve been okay if he’d been able to brace himself from the beginning but once he started screaming he couldn’t stop. He struggled against the tiny amount of slack he had, but it didn’t help; the blows just kept coming.  
  
The last hit struck right above the waistband of the pajama pants and when another didn’t fall Bucky managed to get ahold of himself, though he nearly bit through his lip doing it. He pressed his face into the mattress and was glad it muffled his breath because that way he couldn’t breathe fast enough to sob. He knew his eyes were streaming.  
  
“Damn,” someone said, not Asshole #1 or Rollins or Handcuffs. “After the way he usually is—”  
  
“I told you. Kid isn’t even in the Army yet,” Asshole #1 said. He sounded smug. Bucky would have cheerfully ripped out his throat with his _teeth_. “So pay up.”  
  
“C’mon, Rumlow, you think I brought my wallet in here? I’ll pay you later.”  
  
“You better. How about you, kid? Still feeling smart?”  
  
Bucky turned his head enough to be able to talk and said, “Rumlow’s a stupid name.” But talking was a mistake because his mouth was open when the whip came down again and this time Bucky did sob, and he knew they all heard it before he could bury his face in the mattress. The lines this time lay almost parallel to his spine and made tiny hotter flares where they crossed the first set, and he had no idea how he could _tell_ , who could feel such tiny things? His whole body was different, somehow.  
  
“You don’t know when to shut up either, do you?” Rumlow asked him, sounding exasperated, like a teacher who’d caught him playing jacks when he should have been in class. Bucky tried to focus on the words but he couldn’t, the pain taking up the whole world. He barely noticed that he was struggling again; normally he’d have winced at the handcuff digging into his right wrist but under the circumstances it was drowned in the flood. It went on _forever_ , and someone was telling them to stop it, please stop, and Bucky was grateful until he realized it was his own voice.  
  
By the time it stopped he couldn’t form words anymore. He couldn’t even be ashamed of the tears that soaked the mattress. His back burned like there was a giant iron pressed to it. Someone sat on the cot next to his head and Bucky flinched.  
  
“Relax, kid,” Rumlow said. “Take a second, breathe. I want you to be able to understand what I’m saying.”  
  
Bucky rolled his face away. Rumlow let him, and waited with what seemed like patience while he sniffled. It took a long time to stop the tears. _Oh God I want to go home,_ he thought.  
  
“You will,” Rumlow said, and Bucky realized with horror he’d spoken aloud. “On the one hand it’s too bad, you’re a lot more fun than the asset. But the asset’s more valuable than fun.” He heaved a put-upon sigh as Bucky frowned; he’d thought he _was_ ‘the asset’?. “So in a few days, you’ll be gone, back to your star-spangled buddy Rogers.”  
  
That was...weird. Bucky turned his head enough to see Rumlow’s face. “What the hell does that mean?”  
  
Rumlow grinned at him. “Rogers is gonna be Captain America,” he said like that was some kind of explanation. “He’s gonna run around Europe killing Nazis. And then he’s gonna die.”  
  
“Pal, have you seen Steve?” Bucky asked raggedly. “Only way he’d kill anyone is by givin’ ‘em pneumonia.” It was the only part of the statement that made any sense. He ignored the dying part—and the ‘Captain America’ part, whatever the hell that was supposed to mean. Not to mention that even when the US eventually got into the War, no sane army, American or otherwise, would take Steve.  
  
Rumlow shrugged.  
  
“Why are you telling me this?”  
  
“It doesn’t matter what I tell you, kid. When you get back, you won’t remember.” Rumlow patted him on the metal-covered shoulder and Bucky just stopped himself from trying to shrug the hand off. “Now here’s the deal: you have two choices.” He held up one end of the whip and grinned at whatever expression crossed Bucky’s face. “There’s this. Or you can ask us to fuck you.”  
  
Bucky stared at him, speechless, for long enough that Rumlow said, "Well?"  
  
"Go to Hell," Bucky said. He didn't let his voice crack.  
  
"Your choice," said Rumlow, standing up. "Just remember: the longer you make us wait, the nicer you're gonna have to ask." He must have made a gesture Bucky couldn't see, because the scissors put in another appearance, taking the pajama pants and what flimsy protection they offered. _I can do this,_ Bucky thought, his lips firmly closed. The moment stretched unbearably. _I can. I can. I—_  
  
The faint sound of the whip cutting the air made him jump, trying to curl in on himself. It landed with a crack, right across his bare ass. Bucky didn't scream. He didn't scream till the fifth one, on his back again. He squeezed his eyes shut and clenched his jaw and couldn't stop the whine that rose in his throat and tried desperately to pass out before he could beg them to stop.  
  
For a minute he thought he was going to manage it, and then he made the mistake of opening his mouth to gasp for air. "Stop it, stop it, please stop, I can't _I can't please_ —"  
  
"That's not the right thing to ask for, kid," said Rumlow pleasantly, and Bucky wailed.

* * *

He had no idea how many times Rumlow had paused to ask him if he was ready to ask nicely yet. He was past wanting to kill them, past wanting to escape; he wanted to die. The whip came down, the end curling around his ribs, and he barely twitched. It didn't matter, nothing mattered, nothing he could do would stop them hurting him, and Bucky waited for the next blow in the grip of a fear that was so huge it drove out everything else.  
  
It didn't come.  
  
Rumlow said, "You know, kid, I'm impressed, I really am. But my arm's starting to get tired, so unless you want to find out what comes next..."  
  
"Fuck me," Bucky said dully.  
  
Someone whistled. "Sorry, kid, I didn't hear you," Rumlow said.  
  
"Fuck me," Bucky repeated. "Please."  
  
Rumlow grabbed him by the hair, the 'asset's' too-long hair, and hauled his head back. "Say that again, nicer."  
  
"Please fuck me."  
  
"I'm not sure he really wants it," said the guy who'd brought the chain in.  
  
Rumlow nodded slowly and said, "You know, Svenson, you're right. That wasn't very convincing. Try again, kid."  
  
Bucky swallowed. His voice was rough. "Please fuck me, please," he said and it was like a dam burst. "Please, I want it, I want you to fuck me, please fuck me." He groped for the kind of things the dames would say in eight-pagers and couldn't come up with anything beyond, "Fuck me hard, please, please, I—"  
  
Rumlow chuckled. "Somehow the Winter Soldier ain't so scary when it's begging for my cock."  
  
They laughed. Bucky closed his eyes.

He could feel that there was a place in his head that he could retreat to, if he could just manage to figure out how to get there. It would be quiet there, safe. But every time he thought it might be in reach, something would happen that snapped his attention back to his body.  
  
Hands on his ass, burning against the welts, spreading him even wider than the position of his legs forced.  
  
Fingers pressing into him, not really painful but not _wanted_.  
  
Rumlow’s pleasant voice, telling him to relax, relax, kid, or this is gonna be worse than it has to be.  
  
Bucky stared at the white fabric of the mattress, the pattern of the weave taking up all his attention as the fingers probed inside. He let himself drift, let himself stop thinking, and he could feel the safe place closing around him when a jolt of _pleasure_ ran through him and he let out a startled cry. “Found it,” said Svenson in a tone of deep satisfaction, and whatever he’d just done he did again, and again, and Bucky could feel his dick trying to fill. “Oh God please don’t,” he said, quiet even to himself, but Rumlow heard him.  
  
He ran his hand down Bucky’s back, a gesture that would have been soothing if the flesh hadn’t been covered in weeping welts, and said, “It wouldn’t be fair to get ours without making sure you have some fun too.”  
  
“I’ll kill you all,” Bucky said hopelessly. “I will kill you all.”  
  
“You can try, kid,” Rumlow said in amusement.  
  
Bucky tried to focus on the pain but it wound around the pleasure like a vine on a fence. His hips moved against the mattress and he couldn’t stop them; the friction just made it worse, or better, he couldn’t tell. When he jerked himself off, he liked to take his time about it, let it build slowly, make it sweeter, but Svenson seemed to be interested in speed. He jabbed the spot over and over and it didn’t take long before Bucky felt his breath start to shorten, his hips losing their rhythm. “No,” he gasped, but it didn’t stop, and he came moaning.  
  
He was still in the grip of it, panting into the mattress, when Rumlow knelt behind him, petting him with calloused hands that sparked pain. “Too bad Rogers never got to see that,” Rumlow said in a voice thick with lust. “Guess he was too stuck up for it, huh?” Something rubbed against Bucky’s asshole, something thicker than a finger, and he bit his lip hard enough to taste blood. “Tell me you want it,” Rumlow said. Bucky didn’t move. Then, with calm menace, “Tell me you want it or we’ll go back to the whip.”  
  
It took three tries to manage, “I want it.”  
  
“Ask for it.”  
  
“Please.”  
  
“Please _what_?”  
  
“Please fuck me,” Bucky whispered.  
  
Rumlow laughed, low and cruel. “Whatever you say, kid.”  
  
It didn’t hurt very much, compared to the all-encompassing burn of his back, but it was sharp and intrusive and he couldn’t ignore it. Rumlow hadn’t undressed and the rough fabric of his pants rasped against raw skin. Bucky writhed, and Rumlow chuckled, bending over to murmur in his ear. “Good boy. When you get home you should show Rogers all the tricks you’re learning. What do you think Rogers would think, seeing you take it like this, begging for it like the slut you are? What would he think of his pal Bucky then, huh? Maybe he’d make you take it too, once he knew that was what you’re good for.”  
  
And for just a second, clarity descended. “Steve’s still alive,” Bucky said wonderingly. “He’s all right.”  
  
“He went down with the plane, kid,” Rumlow said. “He’s dead as dead gets.”  
  
“You can’t hate a guy so much if you never met him,” Bucky said, and he knew he was right when Rumlow dug his fingers into the skin at the nape of Bucky’s neck and scraped down his spine; his fingernails were short but it didn’t matter. Bucky screamed again and the thrust of Rumlow’s cock got worse as he clenched around it.

* * *

He thought Rollins went next but he couldn’t keep track. They almost all went more than once anyway. By the end they had to hurt him to make him tense up, the crisp snap of his fingers breaking just like he remembered it.  
  
They left him bent over the cot when they walked out. Bucky didn’t care. He’d have welcomed being chained on his knees again as long as none of them touched him for a while.  
  
He slept.

* * *

When they came back, he found out what came next.

* * *

"Gonna miss you, kid," Rumlow said. His hand carded through Bucky's long hair absently. Bucky (Steve called him Bucky, not 'kid', not 'asset') listened to the words only enough to understand that they weren't an order. All he had to do was take what he was given and it wouldn't hurt as much. "I'll probably never see you this young again."  
  
Bucky didn't know how to respond, if a response was wanted, and he began to tense up, but Rumlow just shrugged. "It'll be wearing off any time now."  
  
As if in response, Bucky felt something new, a buzz that began at the base of his spine and spread rapidly through his body. New was terrifying and he tried to struggle but the feeling washed over him and in its wake there was nothing but black.

* * *

 

_L'envoi_

Bucky opened his eyes to find Steve leaning over him in the pale pre-dawn light that filtered through the curtains Steve had insisted on. Steve's blond brows were drawn down in a concerned frown. "Bucky, are you OK?" Steve asked. His hand rested on Bucky's left shoulder and Bucky could _feel_ it and for some reason that made him relax.  
  
Bucky shook his head and Steve's face got a little darker. "No, I'm fine," Bucky said, sitting up. The blanket puddled around his waist and he rubbed his hands over his cheeks as Steve took a half-step back. "I...had a weird dream? I think?"  
  
"It must have been pretty weird," said Steve. "It almost sounded like you were crying."  
  
Bucky looked around. Even in the dawnlight their shared bedroom looked reassuringly solid, age-gray wood and the iron bedstead he’d had to enlist three of the guys from the warehouse to help him haul home. "I don't remember," Bucky said slowly. "It felt...it felt real, I guess."  
  
Steve sat on the edge of Bucky's bed, his slight weight making the frame creak. He settled his hand in the center of Bucky's back and Bucky almost winced away from the familiar touch until he realized it didn't hurt—though he had no idea why he'd expected it to. "Well, you can go back to sleep unless you're going to Mass with me."  
  
Bucky said, "I didn't get to confession. I'll go next week."  
  
Steve rolled his eyes but Bucky knew what he looked like when he was hiding a smile. "You been sayin' that for a month and a half. Not many Sundays left before Christmas."  
  
Bucky lay back down. Mass, the familiar words, would be nice even if he couldn’t take Communion, but he wanted his own bed for a while longer. "I'll go next week."  
  
"You better, jerk." Steve took a deep breath and Bucky listened automatically for wheezing, but it wasn't too bad. "Buck, are you sure you're OK?"  
  
Bucky cocked an eyebrow. "That's my line."  
  
"Bucky," Steve said severely.  
  
"I'm perfect, Stevie," Bucky said.  
  
Steve stared at him for a few seconds like he didn’t believe it, and Bucky smiled. After one more pause Steve returned it and said, “Go back to sleep then, lazybones.”  
  
Bucky nodded and let his eyes drift closed.


End file.
